Weapon Thirty-Four
by unwriteranonymous
Summary: Weapon One was a disaster. Weapon Two even more so. Weapon Three died in his sleep. Yet Stryker keeps on trying... Why?


The Weapon program was unique. Beautiful. Promising to yield results.

It wasn't Stryker's fault it had run into complications.

He had done all he could, really. You couldn't deny him credit for trying. The idea was brilliant, and it required only one thing: a mutant with extreme regenerative abilities. Combine that with his newly-discovered technology that allowed him to manipulate adamantium and all the techy gadgets the government could supply him with, and the results should have been perfect.

Should have being the key word here.

The first Weapon was supposed to be simple, an undestroyable, unstoppable force with no room for finesse. Stryker would give the order and the Weapon would follow it, whether it was destroying a building or smashing a train off its tracks. The plans took about a year to develop, and the mutant was found in less than a month: a simple country guy who was lured in by the promise of an exciting life in the city. He didn't strike Stryker as too bright and he was fairly obedient, up until the procedure.

The operation consisted of melding adamantium to the man's bones and injecting him with the strength serum that had yielded such pretty results a few years ago with that Captain guy. Sure, the serum was only a copy, but his scientists assured him it would have the same effect. The final step would be injecting the mind control chip, as Stryker liked to call it- in reality a small serum-releasing capsule that worked on the cerebro-spinal fluid of some telepath. Then they would apply an electrical shock to the mutant's brain to make sure he forgot his past life, and voila! One superweapon ready for use.

'It had all been so neat on paper,' Stryker had thought as he cowered behind an overturned table, his bodyguards pointlessly shooting at the Weapon. The Weapon had turned absolutely crazy, attacking the surgeons before they even had time to insert the chip. Stryker personally believed it was the Serum. He had heard that it could have that effect some times. Maybe it was time to replace the scientists who had worked on it.

The Weapon had completely wrecked the lab before finding a door through which to escape. The bodyguards were immediately fired. Anyone who was stupid enough to continue shooting at a man with a healing factor whose bones had just been reinforced with adamantium deserved to live on the street. Stryker had sighed and ordered some soldiers to clean up the mess before getting up and leaving to his office, back, as they say to the drawing board. He had taken out a piece of paper, sighed again, and written 'Weapon one: fail ' in big letters at the top.

"Weapon one?" His secretary had asked. "Is there another one?"

Stryker had smiled, baring his teeth. "I'm not one to give up so easily. Call my contacts from the Broooklyn Detention Complex. Tell them I'm on the look again."

So it happened that Weapon Two was a criminal, arrested twice for housebreaking and once for murder. This time, Stryker had taken more precautions. He himself was not present at the operation table, and the guards who were were all armed with horse doses of tranquilizer as well as the strongest tasers Stryker could find. His scientists had convinced him to give the serum another try, and this time Stryker had another brilliant idea: lasers installed in the palms of the hand. It would be perfect.

"It's the bloody serum that does it!" Stryker had screamed as he strode into the lab after the procedure. "It drives them goddamn insane! The whole lab is wrecked, the only guards I had who weren't dumb as bricks are dead and the mutant has escaped! Plus, what's left of the whole place is scorched with lasers, and I think a fire has started somewhere. "

"Have you tried inserting the lasers after it has been shown that the mind-control chip works?" one of the scientists said hesitantly. Stryker looked at him, fuming, turned on his heel and left the lab, slamming the door.

With Weapon Three, however, Stryker had taken that precaution as well. The chip was installed before the whole operation. Unfortunately, Weapon Three had died during the adamantium installation. Stryker wasn't even angry, just disappointed. He had propped himself in his chair with a bottle of whiskey and thought long and hard about where his life had gone so wrong.

By Weapon Twenty Three, Stryker had learned a number of things. One was that with the mind chip in place, no subject had the will to survive the adamantium installation. Another was that mutants sometimes died during that procedure anyway, but it was only about one in seven, which was fine by his standarts. It was important to know that the best mutants usually came from the countryside, and the best way to reel them in was with a promise of glorious service to the country. And the most important thing that Stryker had learned was that no matter what you did, with the serum or without it, with additional installations or just the adamantium, the Weapon would break free, reign chaos on the lab, attempt to kill Stryker and escape. Stryker figured there was a bar full of them somewhere, talking about the terrible pain the adamantium installation caused and cursing him. The thought, strangely, made him feel better.

Ten more Weapons came and went, with the same results. By this point it took about a month to draw the plans and two weeks tops to locate the mutant. Everyone on the team knew what they were doing, and Stryker sometimes felt like it was the only thing keeping them from ripping apart the Weapon plan sheets and calling it a day.

With all the experience behind his belt Stryker knew what he was doing. An impressive-looking soldier would introduce himself to the mutant as Stryker, Stryker himself looking at the whole thing from behind one-sided glass. The soldier would explain everything and leave the mutant with the surgeons and a few lazy-looking guards to make the Weapon candidate feel relaxed. The real soldiers would be behind the doors, waiting for the signal that all hell was breaking loose and that they were needed. Stryker himself would watch the procedure from a balcony covered with the same one-sided glass (it was important that it be one-sided because one of the mutants had looked at the balcony, looked at the phony Stryker and put two and two together, jumping to an incredible height and clawing at the balcony. Stryker had needed new pants). The operation room would be scarcely furnished, with only the operating table and a tray full of tools that would be removed the moment the mutant started attacking. The walls and floor would be covered in soft mats so as to reduce personnel loss from thrown-against-the-wall-caused-neck-snapping.

This time, Stryker thought, it would actually work. He told himself that every time. There was no other way to make himself keep going. The Weapon would be strengthened with an adamantium skeleton, an injection of a simpler serum (designed for a normal strength boost, nothing super) would be done, small lasers would be installed in the hands and adamantium spikes on the knuckles. It wasn't one of the brute force models, instead meant for subtler work.

"Are you ready, sir? " His secretary asked. Stryker blinked. "Yes, quite. You?"

"Well, I always thought these attempts are quite stressful, but you know. Other than that."

Stryker sighed. "I'm thinking maybe we need to switch from numbers to letters. I don't want to have to deal with Weapon Two-Six-Eight."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll succeed until then, sir," The secretary said politely. Then she added: "Besides, you'd have things like Weapon K. Weapon F. Weapon X. Sounds a bit ridiculous, no?"

"I don't know. Weapon X actually sounds quite nice. Still, you do have a point. Maybe I should stick to numbers."

The secretary smiled and left, probably to bring him coffee. He always needed coffee before these things.

Stryker looked down at his desk. It was empty save for one piece of paper that he had been unconsciously crumpling in his hands. He smoothed it out and peered at the text, written in his own handwriting.

'Weapon One: Fail', it said in big letters at the top. 'Weapon Two: Fail', slightly below. The lower on the paper, the smaller the handwriting got, in an attempt to fit the numerous numbers on the list. 'Weapon Sixteen: Fail.' 'Weapon Nineteen: Fail.' Stryker smiled slightly at that. Nineteen had been the closest, actually completing the operation without attacking anyone. He had even started his first mission before the mind control chip failed; and even that was more of an accident than the usual Weapon pattern.

Taking out his favorite blue pen, Stryker wrote, in tiny letters, very close to the bottom of the page: 'Weapon Thirty-Four: '.

This was it. The mutant promised to be pliable and quiet. It might actually work this time.

It took Stryker a few minutes to get to the bulletproof balcony. Once there, he took a deep breath, opened his comm device and said, in a quiet voice:

"Operation Weapon Thirty-Four, commence."

From there it was up to fate.


End file.
